Occasionally we see a piece of
evidence for paranormal activity which is exceptional, mind-blowing,
amazing! On other occasions however we see evidence which may seem a
tad "over-rated". One of these such videos circulated the internet early
in April 2011 and became known as the ghostly shadow or "blob" which was
filmed on Live TV.
The reporter appears to be
describing an accident which occurred on a motorway when, suddenly, a
dark object appears from the top of the screen, pauses, and then moves
across to the right. The logical explanation behind this is so simple
that I almost didn't write this article, the video however provides us
with a valuable lesson in the laws of "focus" which can be applied to
many other videos and images of alleged paranormal activity.
The image below is a very rough
(and not to scale) sketch of what's going on.
To the left we have a camera lens,
to the right a theoretical path showing where the anomaly appears to be
travelling and in between we have our reporter.
Now the reason I am so sure that
this isn't a ghost is due to the way that focus works. When you have a
single lens (such as a camera) a focal point is required, everything
which is after the focal point is in focus, everything between the focal
point and the lens appears out of focus. The clear focal point in this
video is the reporter, the anomaly appears to be crossing the road
behind the reporter. Strangely however the anomaly also appears out of
focus, if it was indeed crossing the road in the background then it
would appear in focus with much sharper edges.
As the anomaly is out of focus then
it must be something which is between the lens and the reporter, this
leads predictably to an insect on the lens being the cause of this
alleged ghost. The insect moves down the lens, turns around (and
reflects light from its wings hence the slight flash which can be seen)
and then walks towards the right of our picture.
The best way to demonstrate how
focus works with a single lens is by simply holding out a finger at arms
length, closing one eye and then placing another finger closer to your
face. You will notice that the closest finger is out of focus and the
closer you hold it to your face, the more out of focus it appears. As
you can probably imagine, a bug on the actual lens its self would appear
so out of focus that it become almost unrecognisable.
I hope you found this short report
interesting, keep your eyes open for more sightings of paranormal
activity!
